Too Late EDITED
by xxxRavensClawxxx
Summary: My last upload of this sad story was with a PDF file. Now a reviewer, Bushwah, gave me a fixed version, so ITS ALL GOOD! Enjoy!


**Okay, so I uploaded a PDF file version of Too Late, and it came out all weebly-wobbly. Then Bushwah (Thanks!) gave me a fixed version! Here it is, the easier to read version of Too Late!**

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Not even the wisest unicorn can see what happens, and none can stop it from happening. Not even the fastest flier in Equestria.

This and much more was going through a young mare's head as she slowly walked to the old clubhouse of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Her rainbow mane and tail gleamed in the fading sunlight as it set beyond the horizon.

She thought of the young filly she was going to see, the only one she had cared for since her mother had been killed by the storm in the sky so many years before. And she had been too late to save them both.

"Hey, Rainbow Dash!" A voice called from below. Rainbow Dash rolled over on her cloud to see an orange pegasus filly with a purple mane looking up hopefully.

"Sup, Scoots?" she called down.

"I was wondering if we could go to the mountain path and play for a bit. Applejack and Rarity said I can't play there without anypony else with me, and they're in Manehattan visiting Babs right now. Please?"

The cyan pegasus looked across the sky she floated in to the setting sun. "I don't know, kiddo. It'll be dark soon…"

"It'll be light still for LOADS of time. Please, please, please, please, please, please?" she said. Rainbow Dash sighed and gave in.

"All right, but only for a few minutes."

The pegasus approached an object at the base of the old oak. It was silhouetted by the sunset. A wooden cross in the ground, donned with a tattered red cape and a purple helmet. Too late.

"Hey Scoot, be careful here. These rocks are a bit slippery." Dash called from her cloud above the filly. Scootaloo nodded and they continued, finally reaching the clearing on the mountain path. Dash looked down.

"All right, squirt, I need to catch some of my 40 winks. Be careful, kay?" The filly nodded, and the young mare punched her cloud into a more comfortable shape before dozing off.

The filly looked around for something to do, and saw a pile of rocks on a ledge.

"Maybe I'll get my Cutie Mark in climbing." she said out load as she trekked up to the new activity.

Dash rubbed her hoof on the helmet, and nuzzled the silky cape that Sweetie Belle had made from Rarity's material. She burned that feeling into her mind so that she would never forget the filly. She didn't need to, though. Scootaloo's memory was already burned in her heart.

"Rainbow Dash, help!"

The shriek broke Rainbow Dash out of her sleep, and she looked about wildly until she saw Scootaloo hanging from a ledge above her. Rocks tumbled from her hooves as she struggled to get up.

She flew up to the cliff that jutted out of the mountainside, realizing that if the filly slipped off, the only thing to catch her would be the ground so far below. Landing, she slowly crept towards the only pony she still cared about.

"Don't move, kid!" she said, almost within reach of her. The rocks Scootaloo hung onto slipped again, sending the younger pegasus farther off the ledge.

"I'm slipping! I can't hold on!" Scoot screamed. Rainbow Dash cried out as she leapt forward and grabbed empty air. Scootaloo fell faster and faster to the ground far below.

In the most important race she ever had been in, Dash flew as fast as she could against the hardest opponent yet: time itself.

Time ticked on, but Dash didn't move from the grave. She had failed. Memories flooded back from the week before, and she cringed as she heard a word in her mind, over and over and over.

Failure.

"Almost there!" Dash called to the falling filly. Tears welled in Scootaloo's eyes as she looked at the big sister figure in her life. The ground grew nearer with each passing second, and the filly could see the outcome of this all.

"No, you won't. I just want you to know, I loved yo-" The words were knocked from her as she hit the ground with a sickening thud. And Rainbow Dash saw it all, barely pulling up in time to avoid a similar fate.

She wouldn't have cared if she had.

And as she recovered from the crash she did take, she wailed her pain into the air.

"SCOOTALOO!"

Rainbow Dash knelt by the small grave. She would have broken into tears long ago, but what if Scootaloo was watching? She knew the cyan pegasus as a strong, willful pony, one who was beyond sorrow. She was supposed to be tough.

Supposed to be tough, but in reality, she was only one thing.

Too late.

Dash sprinted over to the body of the filly. She rolled her over, listening for a heartbeat, a pulse, something! Then Scootaloo coughed. "Scoots! It's okay, kid, we'll get you to the hospital, you'll be okay! Just don't strain yourself. It'll be okay…"

"No, it won't," the younger pegasus said weakly. She breathed in the fresh air of the twilight, feebly patting the ground next to her. Rainbow Dash lay down next to her, trying to hold onto the hope that Scootaloo would be okay.

"This is a beautiful place to die," she said, and Rainbow Dash noticed, suddenly, the beauty of the place around her. The air was cool compared to the summer heat of the day, and the trees and flowers were in full bloom. Birds sang to each other as they settled into their nests to sleep.

"You can't die! Not yet."

"I know," Scootaloo chuckled, coughing in the middle of it. "I can't fly, let alone have my Cutie Mark. I'm dying a failure." She gasped for breath. Dash shook her head vigorously in defiance.

"No, Scootie. You're a winner, and I couldn't be a prouder older sister. I love you."

"I love you too… Dashie." She was suddenly attacked by a fit of coughing, and despite Dash's efforts to stop it, she drew her last breath.

Anyone seeing the scene underneath the clubhouse in the old oak tree, they would be hit by a wave of sorrow without even knowing who died and who was at the grave now. They would see a grieving mare crying for one that she loved.

Rainbow Dash had brought Scootaloo to the hospital. Brought it in hopes that the fall had only injured her. But in the end, that's all they were: hopes. The mare at the desk saw the cracked and bloody body of the orange pegasus and immediately pointed Dash in the direction of the Emergency Room, where the doctors took the filly.

The next morning, all Rainbow Dash's friends and the Cutie Mark Crusaders joined their sobbing friend. Nopony cared that this once fearless pegasus had been brought to tears.

Applejack and Apple Bloom cried together. Rarity and Sweetie Belle leaned on each other, offering comfort that wasn't enough for either of them. Twilight Sparkle and Spike cried too, and Fluttershy was probably in shock, for she only let silent tears trickle down her cheeks.

Even Pinkie Pie wasn't letting forth a waterfall of tears. She only sat and cried, letting her sorrow drip onto the floor. And Rainbow Dash cried the most of all of them.

The doctor came in, and he looked grim. Even he looked like he had cried a little.

"I am sorry to say this… she didn't have a chance of being saved. She died quickly, judging by her injuries. Most likely, she broke her neck from a long fall. Ms. Dash, please. How did this happen?"

At that moment, Dash spilled everything out, about the mountain path, about the fall, and about how she, the fastest flier in Equestria, for the first time in her life, was the one thing nopony thought she could be. She was too late.

The dirt was still soft around the grave. The funeral had only been four days before, and everypony was still grieving. Dash suddenly noticed a piece of paper that had the signature of Apple Bloom's cousin Babs on it. It said:

_To Ms. Scootaloo of Ponyville,_

_I gladly announce the Manehattan branch of the Cutie Mark Crusaders has officially opened. The branch is led by Babs Seed of the Apple family, but all updates will be sent to the founders Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo._

_Yours truly,_

_Babs Seed, Head of the Manehattan Branch of the Cutie Mark Crusaders_

Tears openly flowed from Rainbow Dash's eyes as she remembered the funeral.

"We gather today to mourn the death of the young filly Scootaloo, who passed from us this past Monday of August." the preacher said to the colts and mares in the gathering around the Cutie Mark Crusaders' clubhouse. People began walking up to the grave, saying things to Scootaloo in case her spirit could hear them. Rainbow Dash stood at the end of the line. Applejack and Apple Bloom were first, but only the latter spoke.

"Hi Scoots… I'm really gonna miss you. I got a letter from Babs for you, but I'll put it on your grave so you can read it yourself. I… I wish you hadn't… d-died…"

Apple Bloom broke into sobs that wouldn't end soon, so Rarity and Sweetie Belle went up the fresh grave. Once again, only the Crusader member spoke.

"H-hi Scootaloo. I really m-m-miss you. We found your cape and helmet. Twilight put a spell on them so that they c-can't leave your grave ever. I'm really going to miss you…" She broke into waves of tears, and Rarity led her away.

"There, there, Sweetie Belle. She's in a better place now."

"But nowhere, is any better, without her friends…" the young unicorn said.

The line continued. Scootaloo got messages from everyone, except for Pinkie, who merely wept and put a small cupcake on her grave. Finally, it came to Rainbow Dash. She blinked tears from her eyes as she knelt by her adopted sister's grave.

"Hey, kiddo. You should have seen the scenery where you fell when we went to get your cape and helmet. The leaves just turned to a light shade of orange. Just like your coat." She paused, trying to hold back a wave of tears. She failed, just like in everything else.

"I'm so sorry! I miss you, little sis. I can't stand living without you. I was going to invite you to live with me in my home in Cloudsdale, I even prepared a new room for you. I'm sorry that I couldn't save you, sorry I napped instead of watched you. I'm sorry… I'm sorry I was too late."

She broke off, not bawling like the other ponies around her, but containing her sobs, containing her tears. And anypony that has cried like that knows that that's the most painful way to cry.

"It is sad to lose somepony who has lived a full life that can be missed," the preacher continued, "but it is sadder still to lose somepony who hasn't even begun to harvest the fruits of life." It was at these words that Rainbow Dash's last barriers failed, and she galloped away with crystal tears trickling into her rainbow mane.

After Dash was done crying for Scootaloo, she cried for her mother. For her father, who had been killed in a tornado before she was born. For her older sister, who had left in a huff one day and never come back. She wept for everything she hadn't cried for. Letting out all that pain she had bottled up for years upon years. And then she noticed her surroundings.

The leaves were now a deeper shade of orange than the day before the funeral, matching Scootaloo's coat even more. She noticed that in the deepening twilight, the purple sky matched Scoot's mane, as if it had expanded and had ice speckled across it.

She cried again, but her tears were less, for her eyes were already drained. She leaned in to whisper to Scootaloo.

"Goodbye, little sister. I was so proud of you, and I can't wait to see you again someday. Maybe we'll fly together in the clouds of heaven."

At that moment, she expected something. Waking up to find this all as a dream. Finding somepony like Scootaloo that she could raise on her own. Maybe even Scootaloo's spirit coming to comfort her. But those only happened in mare's tales.

Stories with happy endings were just that, stories. And though Scootaloo would live on in Rainbow Dash's heart, mind, and soul, a haunting memory would accompany her. The fact that Rainbow Dash, the fastest flier in Equestria, destined for greatness, able to clear a sky in ten seconds flat, was a failure.

She would always remember the day she was too late.

**There it is, the easy to read version! Please review this or the older one!**


End file.
